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The 5 Best And 5 Worst Utilities At Renewables and Efficiency: Ceres Rankings

Utilities in states with progressive policies are leading sales of renewable energy and leading in savings from energy efficiency, according to a report released today by Ceres, a non-profit that seeks to mobilize leadership on clean energy.

And those companies may enjoy a head start on EPA’s draft carbon rules.

Utilities like Pacific Gas & Electric Co and Sempra, in California, lead the nation’s utilities in renewable energy sales and adoption of energy efficiency, while Entergy, Southern Company and Dominion, in the American South, have achieved the least.

“The report reveals which utilities are doing well with renewable energy and energy efficiency, and which ones are not doing well,” said John W. Wellinghoff, former chair of the federal regulatory energy commission.

But more importantly, the report may reveal which utilities are best positioned to adapt to changes in state law required by the Environmental Protection Agency’s draft Clean Power Plan.

“We’re really not here to criticize utilities as an industry,” said Dan Bakal, the director of electric power at Ceres, in a conference call this morning, ”but we hope they see this moment as an opportunity to embrace renewable energy and energy efficiency as a cost effective building block for the plans their states are beginning to develop to meet the goals of EPA’s carbon standards.”

In “Benchmarking Utility Clean Energy Deployment,” Ceres and Clean Edge, a clean-tech research firm, compare the nation’s 32 largest investor-owned utility holding companies in three key areas of clean energy deployment. The report does not cover independent power producers.

Here are the top five and the worst five utilities in the three categories:

RENEWABLE ENERGY SALES

Ceres ranked the total amount of renewable energy sold by a utility, or the total amount of renewable energy credits bought or retired by the utility. The Top five performers were:

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